I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for automatically charging electrically powered automated guided vehicles.
II. Description of Related Art
Electrically powered automated guided vehicles are frequently used in factories, warehouses, and the like for transporting parts from one location and to another. These vehicles typically travel along predetermined routes in the facility to transfer their load from one point and to another.
Opportunity electrical chargers are usually provided at least one, and more typically several, locations in the facility to recharge the electrical batteries in the vehicles as required. These opportunity chargers typically perform a rapid charge of the batteries until the batteries attain approximately 80% of their maximum electrical charge. Such opportunity chargers are capable of recharging the vehicle batteries to about 80% of their total storage capacity in a manner of minutes.
In order to clean the batteries and to extend the life of the battery, however, the batteries must undergo a deep charge on a regular schedule, typically weekly. The deep charge usually requires several hours of charging the batteries and, at the end of the deep charge, the internal components of the battery are not only clean, but the battery is recharged to substantially 100% of its storage capacity.
In order to deep charge the electric batteries on such vehicles, it has been the previous practice to manually inspect the vehicles and manually divert the vehicles to a deep charging station whenever a deep charge for that particular electric vehicle is required. This procedure, however, is disadvantageous for at least two reasons. First, in order to conduct the deep charge of the batteries, it has been previously necessary for personnel to not only manually identify and divert the vehicles to a deep charging station, but to also remove the batteries from the vehicle and attach those batteries to the deep charger. Such a procedure is inherently labor intensive thus adding to the overall cost of periodically deep charging the vehicle batteries.
Secondly, since the entire deep charging operation is conducted manually by personnel, human error not only can, but almost certainly will, occur. Common human errors include the failure to timely select the vehicles for a deep charge as well as failure to properly conduct the deep charge for the vehicle batteries. In either case, shortened battery life will result thus necessitating premature replacement of the vehicle batteries. Such battery replacement, of course, is expensive to implement.